David McElroy

I started my life full of hope. I believed people were good and that my future was bright.

The world was some sort of ideal and rational place, at least in my mind. I learned to believe — in a way that isn’t clear to me anymore — that intelligence and hard work were always rewarded. I believed most other people were decent and well-meaning. They shared my values.

Somewhere along the way, I absorbed an unspoken promise about life.

If I was intelligent enough and worked hard enough and developed whatever gifts I had, there would be a place for me. The world would value what I had to offer. I would find people who shared my values. I would love and be loved.

I would find where I belonged. Nobody ever stated the promise quite that way. But I believed it.

Living an adult life is nothing like what my childhood led me to expect.

I’ve discovered that high intelligence is often a handicap, not a ticket to success. Shallow hearts and dishonest actions are often rewarded instead. Most of all, I’ve come to see that most people don’t share my values. They’re not much like me.

I see us as a shallow and unhappy culture which has focused so much on material advancement that we’ve overlooked the spiritual and emotional elements which are ultimately more important.

And I have become bitterly disappointed about all of this.

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The company next door to my office moved last week, so I had to say goodbye to some people I’ve gotten to know pretty well.

When I arrived back at the office late in the day last Friday, I stopped to see how their move was going. Laura was the only one left in the office and she was loading her car with the last things from her desk. She was exhausted and she stopped to chat. Then I told her something I hadn’t planned to say.

“I’m going to miss you,” I told her. “Of all the people who’ve worked here over the years, you’ve been my favorite. This might sound strange, but it’s because you’re a really good person. I just want you to know that I can tell that about you.”

She was flattered and happy. She thanked me for telling her. The rest of our conversation just confirmed what I already thought about her. I walked away feeling glad that I had admitted what I’d seen in her.

I’ve been thinking about that conversation ever since then. What about Laura struck me strongly enough that I felt like telling her that I saw her as a “good person”? I wasn’t sure at first. But then it hit me.

It’s not that she’s perfect. She’s a pretty ordinary person. It’s simply that standards of morality, ethics and decency have fallen so far that a “good person” really stands out by comparison.

And that’s alarming to me.

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I don’t even know her name. We might have exchanged a few dozen words over the last five or six weeks. I know nothing about her. Not really.

But something about this woman’s presence — her gaze, her intensity, her confidence — makes me feel as though she sees me. She knows me. She is fully present.

This young woman works at a specialty butcher shop where I’ve started going each Friday to buy beef for weekend grilling. For her, I’m just another customer. But she has a habit — or maybe a talent — that makes her unforgettable to me.

When she looks at me, she is fully present.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this experience ever since I first encountered her. It’s not romantic. It’s not a feeling that I’m special to her. But everything about her presence reminds me of how unusual this behavior is today.

Most people make us feel unseen. They make us feel almost ignored, as though we don’t matter. But this woman somehow knows how to give a stranger a gift.

It’s the gift of being fully seen. She is giving the gift of her full presence.

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